Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Shankar Family & Friends (1974), Disc 3 of the Ravi Shankar George Harrison Collaborations box set (3CD/1DVD), is the first joint recording project between the two. Shankar Family & Friends brought together Indian classical music icons such as Alla Rakha, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, Lakshmi Shankar, L Subramanium and Western rock and jazz musicians, including Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Tom Scott, Klaus Voormann and Hari Georgeson (George Harrison). Composed by Ravi Shankar and produced by George Harrison, one half of the album comprises instrumentals and songs, while the second half is a thematic ballet. The instrumental part, I'm afraid, doesn't live up to the expectation one would associate with such immortal geniuses. However, excellent vocals by the nightingale of Indian classical music, Lakshmi Shankar, are enough to lure you into preserving this CD for posterity.

Music Festival From India DVD is the real cherry on the cake. It is a rare, previously unreleased concert performance recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1974. This entire concert was originally filmed and recorded for the Material World Charitable Foundation. Over the years, many of these master films have been lost, destroyed or misplaced. This bonus DVD compiles all the complete filmed performances discovered from this historic concert, and the entire concert in stereo and 5.1 audio. The DVD includes the concert film and separate concert audio. The bonus feature (Ravi and Anoushka Mixing in 5.1) is rather disappointing though.